


Kingdom Come

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Friendship, Gen, Malaria, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spanish-American War, Travel, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 18:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4315782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do you do when the war follows you home?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kingdom Come

**Title:** Kingdom Come  
**Authors:** Nightdog Barks, with a significant contribution by Blackmare.  
**Characters:** House, original characters, Wilson  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Warnings:** No  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Summary:** What do you do when the war follows you home? 1,492 words.  
**Author Notes:** So about four weeks ago, I had this dream about a 19th-century House on a train, going to Chicago. Most of the elements from that dream are here. The cut-text is from a letter by John Hay, U.S. Secretary of State from 1898 to 1905. This is now two chapters; a link at the end leads to _The Heart Could Wish_ , by Blackmare and myself.  
**Intrepid Readers:** Blackmare and Pwcorgigirl 

 

 

_It has been a splendid little war ..._

_**Kingdom Come** _

 

"Rev'rend," the voice whispers, low and urgent in House's ear. _"Rev'rend."_ The breath belonging to the voice is boozy, reeking of cheap nickel bourbon.

_Which one?_ House thinks without opening his eyes. Jeff from the other end of the car? Pete from two rows down? George from three rows up? Maybe it's one of the porters. House can't know _everyone's_ name on this train ride from Hell.

_"Rev'rend!"_

"Go away," House mumbles, tries to curl his body a little tighter on the already uncomfortable seat. "I'm sleeping."

"You're not asleep," the voice says. "You're not asleep if you're _talkin'_ to me." The voice grows a hand, which nudges House in the ribs. "Rev'rend, I got somethin' to confess."

House resolutely keeps his eyes closed. "I'm not that kind of Reverend," he mutters. "Go find a priest."

"No priests on this here train," the voice says. "No priests between here an Wichita." The voice sighs, and for just a moment House hopes the would-be confessor is going away. He's soon disappointed.

"Rev'rend, _please_."

It's House's turn to sigh. "God damn it," he mumbles, and opens his eyes.

If the supplicant is shocked to hear a Reverend swear, he doesn't show it. He's not anyone House recognizes -- maybe he drifted in from another car, saw the crosses on House's epaulets. He's young, bright red hair against a freckled face and dark green eyes.

"This is ridiculous," House says, but only to himself and low enough so Red Hair can't hear him.

_"Get rid of the jacket, then,"_ a small voice says from somewhere way in the back of House's head. 

House shuts his eyes again, briefly. He's come to know this voice.

"Can't," he mumbles. "Too cold. Always cold."

_"Well, you didn't have to take my jacket."_

"Yours was right there. Mine was covered with blood."

_" My blood."_

"Goes without saying."

House slowly straightens in his seat, putting his boot soles on the floor and stretching carefully to ease the kinks out of his muscles. Red Hair hasn't moved. Maybe where he comes from, people talk to themselves all the time.

_"I still don't -- "_

"Shut _up_ ," House snaps. Red Hair raises a sandy eyebrow, but it works. Franklin E. Peck, late of the U.S. Army Chaplain Service, falls silent.

For now.

* * *

"A can of beans?" House says. He's sorely disappointed.

"We was hungry," Red Hair says. "And ... we took a chicken, too. From one a them Cuban farmers."

"A can of _beans?_ "

"We was _hungry_ ," Red Hair says again. "They weren't feeding us right."

"All right," House says. He's suddenly very tired. And cold. "Since you were hungry, it ... wasn't a sin." With some effort, he stifles a yawn. "Now let me get some sleep." 

A sigh. It's Franklin Peck. House ignores him.

"The priest usually gives us penance," Red Hair says.

"I told you, I'm not that kind of Reverend."

"The priest," Red Hair repeats, "usually _gives us penance."_

House is about to reply, say something along the lines of everything he's ever said that's ever gotten him in trouble, when he notices Red Hair's right hand, opening and closing, opening and closing.

"All right," House says slowly. "All right. It _was_ theft. So you'll need to say three _Hail Marys_ and ... uh ... four _In Excelsis Deos_."

A deeper sigh. _"Four Our Fathers,"_ Franklin Peck murmurs.

"Four _Our Fathers_ ," House says.

_"Which is not nearly enough."_

"Spoken by the man who still owes me ten dollars from that last poker game," House says. "Did you decide to stand up for that sniper so you wouldn't have to pay?", and Franklin Peck falls silent again.

"Go," House growls at Red Hair. "You're absolved of your sins. Go away." 

Red Hair goes. House folds himself back into his thinly-padded seat. The dreams follow him down.

* * *

_One moment Franklin is beside him, and the next House is shouting, reaching up, calling out for him to Get down, now! Get down, you fool!. But Franklin doesn't seem to hear -- he's shouting out something himself, words House wasn't sure the good chaplain had known, shit and fuck and Oh, you cunt, and he's pawing at his jacket, tearing it off, ripping at his shirt, the cotton in tatters ..._

_House hears the crack of the Spanish sniper's rifle after he sees the result, and the result is a mess, a busted watermelon of a mess of blood and brains and pieces of skull all over the ground and all over House._

_"Franklin," House says, and "Frank," but Franklin Peck is dead, and will remain so evermore. It's not until Franklin Peck's body is brought back to camp that House sees the raised red welt on Peck's chest, just under the left nipple._

__Something_ had got him, and got him good. A wasp, a centipede, a scorpion, and if Franklin had still been alive, House knows, he would have quoted some pretentious bullshit about  O Death, where is thy sting?_

_It's right here, House thinks. It's right here, Franklin._

* * *

House jolts awake from a dream of birds flying over a deep green valley, the gut-clutching _thump!_ of big guns in the distance. The iridescent blue flash of a parrot's wings is burned into his eyelids, and he rubs at his eyes to take away the image. God, he's sweating again -- his tunic is soaked, and he can smell himself. He shivers uncontrollably and pulls his jacket closer, trying to blot out the stink, the parrots, the shouts ... the shouts of his fellow passengers. He recognizes them all.

_"I'm not going back!"_ It's Pete, another veteran from two rows down, Pete who's done something unspeakable with his unit outside Las Guasimas and who believes fervently in eternal damnation. "I'm not going to Chicago! They'll fry me!" And yet he hasn't gotten off the train, hasn't disembarked at any of the stops. Sometimes Pete cries, huddled in his seat. "They'll fry me," he whispers. Franklin Peck would probably say that Pete _wants_ to burn, but really, House thinks, Pete is just an idiot.

Someone close by, near enough that House can hear him but not in his line of sight, is talking to himself, saying " _Yo soy_ son" over and over again, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense so maybe he's saying " _Yo soy_ sun," not that that makes much sense either. House thinks for a moment about speaking up, asking why the sun, but it would just lead to another story and House has heard enough war stories to last him the rest of his life.

Another ague seizes him, a shiver and chill that sets his teeth on edge and then makes them chatter, chatter so violently that he raises one arm and locks onto the cuff of Franklin's jacket, clamps down on the taste of wool and salt to make them stop.

_This is the train from Hell_ , House thinks, not for the first time. He doesn't even know why he's here -- all he knows is that he'd had to get away, away from the heat, away from the green vines and the blue parrots and the insects and the Spanish Mausers and Spanish artillery. He'd taken the first ship from Santiago, the first train north from Miami.

He's not even sure if he's been officially discharged.

He shivers again, and wishes he had a blanket. His bones ache.

The dreams haunt him, dragging him under again and again, while the train creaks its way to Chicago and the cold turns to heat. Ever hotter it grows, as if the metal car were a large rolling oven. Hotter than Texas, hotter than Arizona.

_Hotter than Hell._

It is impossible, he thinks, to sleep this way: parched to the bone, boiling away, shivering, aching. And then sleep takes him down all the same.

* * *

The train has stopped moving, that's one thing. Another thing is that the infernal voices have stopped, those continual shouts and whispers, those endless nudges and pleas to listen, just _listen_ to my story, Rev'rend, I've got to tell _somebody_.

A third thing is that House is comfortable, lying flat on a soft mattress for the first time in days or weeks or who knows, maybe it's months or years.

He's in a hospital, he surmises -- the sharp tang of phenol permeates the air, and these rough linen sheets aren't those of any hotel.

He hears the sound of footsteps, and turns his head, slowly. The man standing beside him holds out a glass of water, waiting without comment while House struggles to sit up well enough to drink.

Left handed, House notes, as he drains the offered glass. He cannot stop his observations, even as tired and thirsty as he is. Pale shadow of a wedding ring, recently removed. A white coat, so he's a doctor. Brown hair, warm brown eyes, a strong grip as he takes House's hand in his.

A smile.

"You have been in Cuba, I perceive." 

 

[ _**Chapter Two** _ ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4496202)


End file.
